Recent figures show that Yazoo City’s crime rate has continued to decline over the past several months.
Although the call volume to the police department has remained fairly steady, the number of arrests have decreased since last April.
Police Chief Jeff Curtis said there could be a number of varying factors to explain the declining arrest figures. From more officers to the new structure within the department, he said all that could contribute to a decline in the local crime rate.
The highest number of arrests occurred last March with a total of 161, which was an increase of 70 arrests from the previous month.
Ticket citations were also extremely high last March with a total of 212 being issued, close to triple from the month before.
Beginning last April, those figures have significantly decreased within the city.
During the last city council meeting, Mayor Diane Delaware took note of the significant decline as well.
“In April of 2014, there was a decisive drop in everything the police department does,” she said, perusing the figures. “That is interesting to me because I took office in 2014. It seems odd that you have a huge drop in calls, arrests and citations.”
Delaware asked that Curtis investigate as to why those figures dropped so dramatically over the last eight months.
“Either there was an immediate drop in performance or I stopped crime, which I don’t think that happened,” she said, with a smile.
